Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Uncomfortable fantasies.

I have rape fantasies. Not the worst kind, I don't really want to be hurt, just roughed up a bit and held down by someone I'd want anyway so they can force me to do things that I'd enjoy anyway. But I'm saying "no" and I mean it and they're not listening. And the "things that I'd enjoy anyway" can get pretty harsh. It's not just fucking, it's beating, binding, cutting, piercing, humiliation, being used for sex that hurts and I really don't enjoy--nasty stuff. Stuff that would be so not okay in the real world.

I'm always the victim, or in third-person I identify with the victim. I can't imagine myself hurting someone else. I can get off on being a sweet dominant, on giving someone what they really want, but even in my mind I need them to be very clear that they're really enjoying it.

This goes against pretty much all my values, but I'm okay with it since it's just fantasy. If I can play games where I kill human beings, I can have fantasies where I do other things that would be terrible in real life. The only time I get uncomfortable is when I read rape (ahem, "non-consent") stories written by other people--they turn me on, but I always worry about the writer. Some of them sound like they might not be nice people. I know it's hypocritical, but hearing someone else's rape fantasies creeps me out. And gets me off.

The explanation I've heard multiple places for rape fantasies is "oh, women want to think someone lusts for them so much that it's uncontrollable." Or "oh, women want sex without guilt, because it's not their fault." I think both of these are pretty much bullshit. Maybe they explain "bodice-ripper" rape fantasies, the kind where he's forceful but gentle, but my fantasies just seem meaner-spirited than that. I think it's just straight-up masochism. I don't think you can explain it away as something that's really sweet and fuzzy on the inside.

I'm not sure if I'd like rape play in reality or not. I know it would take a lot of trust, I couldn't do it casually. But I have this horrible suspicion that it would actually be kinda fun. "Fun" might not be the word? An experience worth having.

18 comments:

I'm so not into this. No offense, but my niece got gang raped under the influence of roofies a week ago in Laughlin. NV. If I saw the fuckers I would go straight for my gun. There is a dark side. Sometimes, playing too deep in the shadows, encourages demons into the light. Fuck that.

...but I distinctly wanted this one guy to punch me, but couldn't think of a way to convey this that didn't sound weird and scary and like something I wanted to encourage him to do in general beyond me

Frankly, I think any man who is not at least a little uncomfortable with fantasies about raping is a bad man. Fantasies about being raped are different.

Though I have to admit, my wife and I have played out some non-consent fanatasies, more along the lines of sexual harrassment (the imaginary threat being firing not physical force), which we both enjoy extremely. These scenarios are elaborately preplanned because the idea of real non-consent makes me ill.

Man, I'm not sure I can make this comment without sounding like a super-asshole, but I'll try. Please read this in the context of "I'm sick and my brain isn't at full speed so I might phrase things wrong and I'm actively trying not to be a jerk".

Stephen: There's such a tremendous gulf between "kinky sex", even really, really edgy kinky sex, which full bore rape fantasies are, and actual rape, that it's almost impossible to adequately describe.

I hate rapists with a passion. I think your solution of shooting the fuckers is perfectly acceptable. But I suspect those guys aren't kinksters gone bad, they're just assholes (or worse) who get enjoy taking what they want without consent.

And on the other hand, I'm a deeply kinky, edgy player, who has done things with other people that would definitely violate my own ethics if they weren't initially negotiated. And that's the difference. No matter how hard you're playing, no matter how deep into left field you've gone, there's still that thread of consent, there's still the safeword. And, as odd as it will sound, you don't want to go to those ugly places without someone you can really trust. I mean, this isn't exactly first date material.

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Anonymous @ 0453: Apparently this is just my entry to shine on my kink light. I have a lover with whom I have an extraordinarily violent relationship with. But it's all consensual. So, she hits me, and I hit her, and it's not a constant thing, but there have definitely been weekends where the two of us have gone home just plastered with bruises. (It's actually probably really good that we've never lived in the same city. I'm not sure we could survive that. ;) )

But I've never had the urge to punch any of my other lovers. It's never even crossed my mind that that would be an acceptable mode of interaction with them, unless they explicitly requested it.

For what it's worth, my Grand Unified Theory of DS (taken as understood that it's simplified for the sake of brevity):

Humans are social beings, and most of us have some deep programming that rewards us for fitting into a hierarchy (just like--as a sexually reproducing species--our bodies reward us for having sex). _Civilized_ humans understand that with a rational, intelligent approach to authority we can create more fulfilling lives than we could by blindly following that reward system, so we choose not to just be doormats for those higher on the totem pole and tyrants for those lower (just like we realize that blindly following our ingrained drive to reproduce is underfulfilling our potential for happiness). But civilized humans _also_ find ways to trick their bodies into giving the reward without its drawbacks. We hack our hindbrains. IMO, the desires for submission and dominance with carefully selected trustworthy people, and the interest in rape scenes (by emotionally healthy people, anyway) with hypothetical people who meet even higher standards, are basically the same thing as fucking while using birth control.

My partners and I went to a local kink event a year or so ago that offered a class called simply "Punching in the Face". When Danielle read that, her eyes went wide with excitement. The idea that she could actually punch consenting people in the face _safely_ was her favorite thing about the con. ;)

But I really believe that rape fantasies are to rape as first-person-shooters are to murder--only a depiction, and an inaccurate depiction at that, and therefore not bound by the same moral codes as reality.

Elmo Iscariot - I can buy that, because I'm the sort of person who's kind of eager to please in general. I like feeling needed and having clear directions I can follow correctly. Maybe everyone does? But I can easily see how this could translate into sexuality (and get really weird in the translation).

Yup--most of the best submissives I've known were desperate to please as kids (often to the point of being unhealthy), grew up and finally figured out how to balance their own needs with the needs of others, and ultimately discovered that they could have it both ways: be a complete, self-sufficient, empowered adult _and_ get the positive feelings from serving others.

*shrug* There's a pretty clear, bright line in my head regarding rape fantasies and the actual act of rape- mostly because anything we fantasize about is by definition actually under our complete and utter control, whereas actual rape is by definition not.

The part where you end your post with "someone I could really trust" kinda just puts it in a more delicate category of the kind of BDSM play you've talked about plenty in the past, and the part where you dumped a guy that crossed that line of consent, make me wonder what the big deal is.

I've had the same experience reading porno rape stories. They seem to be all written by men/from the male POV. & it's all like, most men who have rape fantasies are harmless kinky dudes who respect women in real life. But on the other hand, REAL rapists all have rape fantasies, like, by definition. So it's hard to know whom you're dealing with.

I don't like it when people are like "I/my friend/my relative had X horrible experience, so I am not okay with rape fantasies." I don't think having a particular experience, no matter how horrific and emotionally charged, enables you to overrule other intelligent, thoughtful people in a debate. (Of course, if the other person really doesn't know what they're talking about, it's a different matter.) I appreciate that you understand the enormity of real-life sexual assault, but many rape fantasists do, too. Not really responding to anyone on this thread anymore, but I've seen people elsewhere make remarks to the effect that they're "against" rape fantasies, and I don't really think you get to "disagree" with someone else's safe, consensual sexual interest. Being "against" rape fantasies won't make them go away, anyhow.

There's nothing wrong with consensual non-consent (yes, seriously, that's what those who are into it call it when they want to be all fancy.. otherwise its just called rape play or force play); but yeah, it transgresses so many of societies AND individuals limits that it's one of those areas you have to really exercise great care and caution playing in.

I've been with a lot of women (frankly... I was a manwhore for about 10 years), and had a lot more as friends. Almost all of them had rape fantasies to some degree or another. Most of them had shame surrounding those fantasies.

A few of them had been raped, and felt great guilt over the fantasies. A couple more had been raped, and now got off on rape fantasies (yes, seriously. The human brain is a fucked up thing).

On the extreme side of things, I've known more than a couple women or girls who committed suicide after being raped. In one case I know she did it because she fantasized about rape beforehand, and felt so guilty afterward she just couldn't stand it. Another woman I knew orgasmed during her rape (multiple times in fact); and again, felt so guilty about that, she killed herself.

A few of them had very violent aggressive fantasies. I've been with two women who just plain couldn't get off if they weren't being forced; and the more force you used, or the more dangerous the force (knife play, gun play, hard breath play etc...) the harder they got off.

Everyone has to draw their own particular line where they are comfortable... and frankly, those two women probably would have been way out of comfort zone for most guys (and I know they were for most guys they had tried to be with, and thus were deeply unsatisfied).

The key to safe play here is just like any other aspect of hard domination, and that is to transgress soft limits, and respect hard limits; and to ensure there are mechanisms for everyone to communicate when those limits are being reached etc... (both before, and during).

...And frankly, both partners have to be emotionally healthy enough, and responsible enough, and know each other well enough, that those limits CAN be respected.

You have to have a top who can INSTANTLY AND TOTALLY control themselves when the edge comes up. You have to have a top who can protect their sub, even when she can't protect herself.

There are too many subs I know who are SO submissive, and would be so deeply into their subspace with a realistic hard dom rape scene, that they literally would not be able to safeword.

You simply can't play that scene safely with those subs; because it may traumatize them without them being able to communicate that. One second it's a wonderful submissive fantasy and play for them; and then all of a sudden it's over the line, and it turns into real terror, and real rape, and they can't tell you they need you to stop... and if their particular brand of fucked up makes them get off on a real rape, not only will you not know she's in serious trouble, you'll just see her having a great time and go harder.

Let me just say that I have personal and direct experience with that one, and I'm going to relate it in a separate comment.

I had a play partner who had been repeatedly molested as a child, then raped as a teenager. She was very much into hard rape fantasy, and hard rape scenes (she could get off without being raped, but she couldn't get off without force); and she was so submissive and self destructive, she wouldn't ever safeword no matter how hard you pushed her.

I really should have known better. I knew how bad she had been traumatized, and I knew how fragile she was, but we played anyway; and up to a point it was great. It helped her exorcise her demons, and I got to force that lovely young woman to orgasm dozens of times.

...but I should have known better...

At one point, we were playing a relatively mild rape scene; and she started really getting into it, so I stepped up the force level just a tiny bit... and something in her snapped, and I couldn't tell... She started continuously orgasm, while screaming "No, no, no," over and over again. Frankly, it was hot as hell. But when she came out of subspace she was genuinely traumatized, because to her all of a sudden what had been a game she was getting off on, became a real rape... which she got off on, which made her feel even worse.

We never played again after that, and although she knows I didn't actually rape her, that trauma is now linked in her mind to me for all time... and she hates me for it.

Rape fantasies have always been a very peculiar thing for me. I've always had them, and I've always struggled with them too. I'm a male, but I'm also transgender, so I fantasize about being raped in a very awkward way(or, to be more precise, empathize with the victim). It's an ugly, ugly thing, though, and I'm positive it's related to my negative feelings about my body/self. I want to be hurt and used and abandoned in the wrong ways. I don't know. It makes me worry that other rape fantasies are similar (like what some of the above posters talk about with rape victims). If I had the body I wanted, I'd probably put myself in some bad situations because I felt like I deserved it.

That's certainly not to say all rape fantasies are like that, but it still makes me worry.

I know that this is an old post, and I read frequently. Circumstances in my life have been sufficiently fucked up that I am only starting to relate to things on a rational level. All that said, I've been molested (for more than 10 years) I have been raped (by someone I trusted implicitly) and that doesn't stop the rape fantasies. It's the IDEA that I'm not in control, not the actual LOSS of control that makes it work for me. I am now in a rather healthy relationship with a very vanilla dude, who just doesn't get it. He can't disrespect me, even in the abstract, and I get off on that too. It's weird for me... to reconcile the two... but I will NEVER tell anyone that their fantasy is WRONG inherently because of the subject matter, if that makes sense.

I've had fantasies where i want to have no control and I have wanted to be hurt and used and abused as well. I mean I found it very conflicting how I could fantasize about such things. As a young woman who thought that she was a feminist and certain morals. I just thought that how can I have any morals if i want to be used like that during sex. I am ashamed of this but I have often wondered what it would like to be to be raped. It does make me feel awful that i'm even making thoughts about such morbid things. I mean bdsm might be one thing but rape totally across the line. I just to get that across I know it's wrong. And girls that are raped get traumatized and have anxiety afterwards. Does that make me a bad person to want things like that? Does it worst than all the rapists and molesters out there? Either way i really do feel messed up.